MADISON -- As lawyers argue the legality of Wisconsin’s constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman, the Catholic bishops of Wisconsin reaffirmed their support for that provision and the voters who approved it.

“In approving the long understood truth that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, the voters were not establishing a religious understanding of marriage as an institution,” the bishops said in a statement August 26. “Rather they were recognizing a truth about human relationships and the nurturing of generations.”

Wisconsin’s voters approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage in a 2006 referendum that garnered 59 percent of the vote. The amendment has since been challenged in federal court, and a judge for the Western District of Wisconsin held the measure to violate the U.S. Constitution.

The ruling was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. That court consolidated the case with a similar appeal from Indiana. The court heard oral arguments on the case on August 26.

The bishops praised Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen for his defense of the amendment. “The attorney general is being true to his oath of office in which he swore to uphold the State Constitution,” they said, saying “he is reminding us all that we are governed by laws as they are, not as we want them to be.”

The court will rule at a future date. It is likely the case will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.